Artist: Paulus Hennekyn
Date: 1658
Size: 67 x 61 cm
Technique: Oil On Canvas
According to an eighteenth or nineteenth-century label on the back of this painting, the sitter is Jan de Hooghe, who was born in 1608 and died in 1682. It is known that he was married to Anna van der Does, whose likeness is in the Rijksmuseum as well (SK-A-2185; also fig. a). Since the present portrait is also signed by Paulus Hennekyn and has almost the same dimensions as hers it has always been assumed that they are companion pieces. However, the one of Jan de Hooghe is dated 1658, 16 years later than Anna’s, which would be highly unusual for pendants. On top of that, she had already been dead for eight years by then. If this is indeed Anna’s husband, he would have been roughly 50 years old when Hennekyn immortalized him. He was then active as a merchant in Amsterdam; in 1680, when the couple"s youngest daughter Anna married the marine artist Ludolf Bakhuizen, he went to live with her in Haarlem. The portrayed man may look a bit young for someone of his age, but Hennekyn could have painted his likeness in 1658 after an original that was made far earlier. That may explain its rather flat manner and lack of detail. Hennekyn came under the influence of Bartholomeus van der Helst in the 1650s, but there is not the slightest trace of that in this picture. One argument that does support the sitter’s identification is that Jan de Hooghe and Paulus Hennekyn were in touch at around the time of this portrait, for when the artist was badly in arrears with his rent in 1659 it was De Hooghe who stood surety for him.8 Through inheritance the painting came into the possession of the Van den Brink branch. Its last member, the unmarried Maria Elisabeth, made a bequest to the Rijksmuseum on her death in 1905, which in addition to family portraits contained prints, drawings, miniatures, miscellaneous objects and a number of letters.9 Richard Harmanni, 2022 See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
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